Last Class

Well we had our last class and chance as a group to work on the Marissa. We continued to work on cleaning up the fiberglass work done over the past weeks and started to build in deck supports and consider the next step. We have learned much about building a boat, learned, and improved skills of boat building. We all thank Joe Clay for his excellent help and guidance during the past weeks. "Joe we know its wood and we can fix it and make it right." Thanks.....

Details

We are spending our time on filleting and working on details of fitting parts of the boat. This is all important work but it all moves slowly. There is not to report about our progress. See some excellent photos on the left.

The Boat Was Turned Over

The inside of the boat now sees daylight

Yes to day was the day we had finished our tasks on the outside of the hull and we needed to turn the boat over to begin work on the inside of the hull. The boat was turn over slowly and with caution. Once it was resting on the blocks we started work in the inside strengthening the forward bulkhead and the transom. We filleted the inside of the hull and applied fiberglass and epoxy to the chine.

Sheathing

Today we sheathed the hull using fiberglass and epoxy. "Sheathing is the term used to describe a ‘heavy duty’ form of coating and is the process of bonding a woven glass fiber fabric onto the wood surface, using a thermoset laminating resin." Read more at the link The photos at the left document the work done today. We are grateful to Russ from Russell Yachts in Morehead City for sharing his time and expertise with us today. We hope to turn over the boat next week. Michael was able to construct supports for holding up the boat when it is turned over.

Fairing Part Two

This Monday many hands were necessary to start and complete the fairing process. We were smoothing out some of the high spots on the hull and sides. Some low spots required filling. There is an interesting explanation of this process at this location. The photos on the left show the action

Attaching the Final Side and a Visit to Lightning Yachts.

Monday was a very interesting day. We completed the attachment of the sides and started fairing the bottom and sides of the boat. Joe's friends from Europe visited the class, and the Marrisa contiues to get exposure around the world. In the afternoon, we traveled to Lightning Yachts in Beaufort. We met Bill Schwabe and his crew of boat builders. Bill Schwabe is designer and builder of the sport fishing boats. "Lightning combines the trational cold-moulding process with the most state-of-the art materials it can find." As Bill says, "The extensive use of lightweight composites allows our boat to reach competitive speeds with less horsepower...the results are lower operating costs." Follow this link to Lightning Yachts.

Our thanks to Lightning Yachts and Bill Schwabe for the opportunity to visit their operation and to learn about building excellent sport fishing boats.

Attaching The Sides

Last Monday was the simlar to the previous week except it was the sides rather than the bottom. Fairing followed by dry fitting followed by epoxy to attach the sides. The photos at the left show the work in progress.